California is at a crossroads. Our finances, schools and society are all in crisis. And at this, our state's most vulnerable moment, a handful of self-interested political players are attempting an unprecedented power grab.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and his backers are seizing the recall as a once-in-a-lifetime chance for him to buy the governorship. The abbreviated race has allowed him to duck tough questions and avoid unscripted debate. He has promised voters a balanced budget without new taxes or spending cuts -- an impossibility except perhaps in a Hollywood movie. He has no plan for helping California and absolutely no experience that might help him come up with one.

The recall and Schwarzenegger's self-funded, media-driven campaign are sucker punches to our democratic system and values. We have seven full days left to fight back and a team of 250,000 people for this final push.

If you have not joined the team by signing our "No Recall" pledge, then please join us now by clicking here:

http://moveon.org/pac/recall/

If you've already signed, then forward this message to all your like-minded friends, coworkers and family and ask them to join us for this final one-week blitz to defeat the recall, stop Schwarzenegger and defend democracy. Let's grow our team to 300,000 people.

Don't be discouraged by the weekend's far-out poll: this race is so unusual that polls are even more meaningless than they usually are. We believe this is still an incredibly close race. And it's a fact that there are enough of us working on this to make the difference ourselves. But we've got to work hard: pick up the phone and call that friend you know might forget to vote, put up a sign in your window, sign up for phone banking -- do whatever it takes.

Over the next seven days we'll be highlighting several different things you can do to make a real, tangible difference in the recall election. With 300,000 people working together, we'll each just need to influence one other person to vote against the recall who might not have without us. If we can do that, then we'll defeat the recall by a wide margin and democracy will have a decisive victory on October 7.